


The Pandemic

by My_Alter_Ego



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23326303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Alter_Ego/pseuds/My_Alter_Ego
Summary: Neal and June discuss the current Corona Virus pandemic around the world.(I guess it’s time to acknowledge the elephant in the room. I hope this short fiction is perceived as more hopeful rather than disheartening.)
Relationships: Neal Caffrey & June Ellington
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	The Pandemic

Neal and June are seated in the elderly matron’s parlor this evening with crystal tumblers in their hands. There is a converted gas fireplace giving off calming warmth, and the Tiffany lamps are casting soft colorful shadows on the silk damask wallpaper. The elegant ambience is only slightly marred by the soft droning of a flat screen television that seems oddly out of place in this stylish and opulent tableau. The talking heads on the tube are discussing the current threat around the globe—the new virulent flu strain known as the Corona virus.

“Has Mozzie checked in today?” June asks a little apprehensively.

“Yep, he has,” Neal reassures her. “He says he’s snug as a bug in a rug camping out in his particular version of Walden Pond somewhere in the Catskills. I’m surprised he was even able to get a cell signal.”

“It’s very hard for me to imagine Mozzie toughing it out in a little pop-up camper,” June says as she shakes her head in bewilderment.

“Oh, Moz’s version of ‘camping out’ isn’t exactly a hardship,” Neal snorts. “His luxury Airstream RV has all the bells and whistles as well as a stash of old vintage wine that would make the most persnickety sommelier drool.”

Neal words of reassurance make June smile. “I worry about my little ‘family’ of misfits, you know.”

“I do know and I’m grateful,” Neal answers with his own fond smile.

The two fell quiet for a bit during the late hour. Delaying a bedtime wasn’t going to matter because neither one could go anywhere in the morning. New York’s governor had put all the citizens of the huge metropolis under virtual house arrest. Neal was restricted to his loft, and even Peter was remaining in Brooklyn until further notice. The FBI’s higher authorities thought that White Collar crimes could just stew on the back burner for a time, although divisions like Organized and Violent Crimes were in place and on high alert. Of course, Neal had to check in with Peter by phone twice a day, but somehow, talking to each other and knowing they were remaining healthy was comforting.

Neal had tried to keep current and abreast of the developments during the crisis. He was as informed as the next person, or as informed as he could be about this new virus that had morphed into a more virulent and pervasive strain than in previous incarnations of influenza. According to the media, it not only had the capacity to stay dormant in an unsuspecting host for a longer period of time, it was also more tenaciously resilient and could lurk on mundane surfaces for up to a week or more. Just like in all horror movies, the unseen ghouls you suspected were surreptitiously waiting to get you were the most scary.

After listening to the newscast for a bit, Neal had a question. “I’m a little confused by these infection statistics that seem to be multiplying exponentially each day,” he said slowly. “I don’t think anyone has made them really clear. Nobody has differentiated if they only represent people who are actively ill, or does that number include the data regarding people who have already had the disease but are getting better, and all the people who tested positive but are not showing any symptoms of becoming sick?”

“It’s probably a case of big numbers make for big headlines in the press,” June replied cynically. “The more catastrophic you can make a disaster sound, the more people will read your newspaper or listen to your station’s commentators expound on the same tedious rhetoric.”

“Yeah, I suppose the press does like to out-hype each other,” Neal agreed. “A free, unfettered Fourth Estate sounds good in principle, but if they get the bit between their teeth and take off at a gallop before checking their facts and their sources, it’s just irresponsible journalism.”

June was silent for a while until she collected her thoughts. “The world has probably been in peril from other scourges since the dawn of human existence. The dinosaurs may have become extinct, but mankind managed to survive some very dangerous threats. Perhaps the dreaded Black Plague from the Middle Ages was just the first to be chronicled in detail. Nowadays, modern science has enabled the medical community to make tremendous strides in finding cures and vaccines, but perhaps we have become too blasé in our outlook. The average person thinks clever researchers are capable of outwitting any evolving threat from nature. I think we have to get our heads on straight and just accept that this current pandemic is yet another adversity to overcome and it will take time. We have ridden out other bacterial and viral invaders, and I believe, eventually, we will vanquish this one as well.”

“You probably have seen a lot of challenging things over your lifetime,” Neal mused.

June nodded her head and sighed. “Personally, yes, and I’ve also been privy to accounts told to me by my parents and grandparents. My maternal grandmother grew up in Baltimore during World War I when the Spanish Influenza epidemic was running rampant after returning doughboys from the European front brought it back to the States. She was just a little girl at the time, but she told me about seeing open-air trolleys loaded with long wooden crates, lined end to end, make their way down the streetcar tracks to the local cemetery. Of course, she had no idea what those mysterious boxes contained, so, to satisfy her juvenile curiosity, she snuck up onto a trolley and lifted a lid. Inside the box was a beautiful young woman dressed in a wedding gown. The poor soul had probably succumbed to the flu before she ever had the chance to walk down the aisle. My grandmother claimed that vision inside a crude coffin haunted her for the rest of her life.”

“I guess there were so many fatalities because the widespread use of antibiotics hadn’t yet made it into the physicians’ arsenals,” Neal remarked.

“Quite true,” June responded, “and there were other diseases that ran unchecked during my parents' lifetimes and mine that medicines of the day couldn’t cure. At first there was tuberculosis, and then a strange paralyzing illness which came to be known as polio. Many of my friends wound up in a monstrosity called an iron lung. Eventually, these new unseen invaders were tamed by antibacterial cocktails and vaccines engineered by epidemiologists like Dr. Salk and, later, Dr. Sabin. I have faith that scientists currently working together all over the world will hit on the right magic bullet to defeat this current bug. Until then, we have to keep calm and not panic.”

Neal was thoughtful. “Americans have become complacent and they like their creature comforts. They miss their soy lattes and their exercise workouts at the gym. They want their normal routines in place which tend to make them feel secure. They have to actively tamp down anxiety that is fueled by the never-ending dire media coverage.” 

“Well, people just need to suck it up and endure what they consider to be a frightening hardship,” June snorted. “That’s what my mother’s generation did during World War II. There were actual ration cards issued for a time during that war. You couldn’t always get eggs, butter, milk, or even gasoline for your automobile. I remember my mother saying she was trying to do her part because she had children to feed, so she planted a miniscule little vegetable patch in her tiny back yard. They called them Victory Gardens back in the day. She said it gave her a sense of pride to watch her cold crop of peas climb her crude trellises and her tomatoes turn red in the summer sun.”

“That’s a really charming vision,” Neal smiled.

“Charming but not always easy because life is never easy, Darling, no matter what your generation. During the early years of my own marriage, I wasn’t always a wealthy woman, and, for a time, I was the head of the household because Byron was incarcerated. I, too, had to do whatever was necessary to stay afloat. My grandparents survived the Great Depression and the tumultuous Stock Market Crash of 1929, not that they had any kind of portfolio to worry about. But Byron and I had to ride out the subsequent economic Stock Market upheaval in the 1980s and the recession in the 1990s. However, adversities aren’t always about money. There have always been other looming disasters that caused just as much fear.”

Neal’s landlady’s face took on a look of reverie and Neal was intrigued. “Please go on, June,” he urged.

“Are you really sure you want to hear an old lady ramble on about the good old days, which really weren’t all that good sometimes?” June asked softly.

“By all means, fill me in,” Neal said with a gracious smile.

June began to, once again, organize her thoughts. “Well, I remember my days in grade school when there were drills where we had to crawl under our desks and protect our heads from a possible airstrike by the Communists in the USSR. Looking back, it now seems ludicrous that wiser people thought that would protect us from an atomic payload. Pitiful homemade bomb shelters were also a ridiculous panicked response since the half-life of a radioactive detonation would last years longer than anybody’s supply of water or canned goods.

By my high school days, tensions had reached critical mass between our country and the Red Menace. I vividly remember sitting in study hall as Premier Khrushchev urged Russian ships on toward Cuba with nuclear warheads on board. Our school principal had piped the radio broadcast into the public address system in our classrooms so that we could listen to on-site observers as the vessels advanced closer and closer to the US blockade. A lot of American citizens thought this showdown was going to be a Doomsday scenario and result in total annihilation, especially for those of us living on the East Coast. Thankfully, it didn’t happen, and an impasse between two world leaders unfolded at the last moment.”

“I’ve read about that in history books,” Neal admitted, “but actually living it was probably a very tense and frightening experience.”

“Oh, but I’m not finished,” June claimed. “Not too very far into the future after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Americans found themselves alarmed and rocked to their very core by the assassination of John Kennedy. It seemed surreal and we wondered how our nation would go on without our young president. But we survived that tragedy just as we survived the ungodly and horrendous events of 9-11. People are stronger than what they think. Unfortunately, it takes a catastrophic apocryphal incident for their fortitude and endurance to come to the forefront.”

Neal was mulling this over. “So, I think what you’re saying is, eventually, we’ll emerge from a very dark tunnel and start again.”

June nodded slowly. “Maybe life, as we now know it, will have to change and we’ll have to adapt to a new normal. We won’t be able to cavalierly expect to go back to what is usual because there will be on-going fallout, especially financially. I believe, somehow, we’ll come to terms with that and find a solution, and even a medical one for this new horrible virus. Then we’ll have to regroup so that we can face the next adversity that is probably just around the next corner. After all, one thing is certain about the future. There will always be natural calamities, dangerous pathogens, and good old fashioned cockroaches in this world.”

“And don’t forget con men,” Neal added with his own charming grin.

A real smile transformed June’s face as she gazed at her companion. “Viva le con men!” she readily agreed as she raised her glass of sherry in tribute.


End file.
